


Paradox Queen of Narcissistic Self-Loathing

by ShinobiCyrus



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Amputee, Blind Character, Canon Disabled Character, Childhood Friends, Comfort, F/F, Humanstuck, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Scourge Sisters, Self-Worth Issues, Short One Shot, Unhealthy Relationships, Vriska is very bad at being supportive, and whatever the hell else their relationship is, in a weird Vriska way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-05 05:51:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5363813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinobiCyrus/pseuds/ShinobiCyrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Usually it's supposed to be Terezi barreling in bright and too-early for a round of loud smugness and mocking lectures while you're still hungover from booze and bad decisions, not the other way around. Whatever, you can handle it. You're basically the 8est at everything, and friendship is all about honestly and support. </p><p>“Wow, you must feel like a huge loser.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paradox Queen of Narcissistic Self-Loathing

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr fic challenge by the lovely deathnoteuser369: 'Vriska/Terezi humanstuck, one (or both) helping the other get out of/over an abusive relationship.'

“Wow, you must feel like a huge loser.”

Terezi groans from the floor. She’s wearing only a pair of dragon boxers, a stained ICP tee-shirt, and for some reason a single red sock. There is no sign of her pants or the other sock. You looked.

You poke her side with her own cane for further signs of life. “Hey! Stop being all passed out and ignoring me!”

She blindly (hehehehe) swats at the air, missing the cane entirely. 

“Fine, be that way, but if you’re dead I get your stuff.”

You aim another prod at her kidney. Terezi’s hand snaps out cobra-fast and snags the end of the cane just as you were pulling it back. She yanks it out of your grasp. 

“Hey, whaddya know? She _liiiiiiiives_.”

Terezi grunts nonsensically and painstakingly sits up. “Wow, you look like shit.” You inform her, because friendship is all about honestly. “I mean, just  _awful_.”

“Always a treat to wake up to your dulcet voice,” she grouses with a throat full of gravel. Her hands feel at her face, vainly trying to rub away crusted sleep and carpet indentations. They pause at her eyes- bare and bloodshot all for being sightless, and she pats hair, then the floor around her. 

Without the cane, you can take pity on her and hold out her sunglasses. “Here,” you say, and wave them in front of her. The swinging temples clacking on the lenses help her zero in on them. She mutters something that could be a thank you and settles them back on her face. _Now_  she looks a little more like herself, the symptoms of her hangover redundant beneath candy-red lenses that look like narrowed dragon eyes.

Hand free, you pick up the Starbucks you left on the counter and sip it noisily.

Terezi’s holding the side of her head like she can keep the contents from sloshing around. She perks up too quickly, wincing, and sniffs at the air like she can snort that sweet, sweet caffeine. “Please tell me you brought extra.”

“Don’t be silly, ‘Rezi. Coffee’s for winners.” You raise your foot high and relish the plastic crunch as your Chuck Taylor’s stomp down on an empty margarita bottle. She hisses at the noise.

“Could you _not_?”

“Not what?” You grind your heel on a bottle of orange Faygo, watching Terezi cringe with every pop and crinkle.

“You know,” she says. “At some point you’re just tormenting a blind girl.”

“You say that like it’s a deterrent.”

She raises her middle finger in your general direction and wobbles to her feet. Even with a hangover, she knows her own way around her apartment and leaves the cane propped up against the closest wall. Her shuffling feet kicks aside more empty bottles of Faygo and cheap margarita mix. 

Must have been one hell of a bender. You’re almost impressed. 

You follow her into the kitchen nook and sit on the counter next to her. Feet dangling, your heels tap an eight-rhythm pattern on her lower cabinets as she works. Her hands move on autopilot, open up drawers and cabinets, feeling her way along while retrieving everything she needs for (much less awesome) instant coffee from their carefully arranged places. She even manages to fill up the coffeepot perfectly in the sink, she’s got it that much down to a science. 

She doesn’t speak to you while she loads a cartridge into her fancy coffeemaker and feeds it water. 

“Y’know ‘Rezi, I’m starting to suspect that my generous visit isn’t being as appreciated as it should be.” Your heels keep bouncing their comforting octadic patter. 

Terezi spins to face you, faster than you think she can move without blowing chunks, and clenches her into your shins, holding your feet still. Bluuuuuuuuh, she interrupted the pattern halfway. That’s going to drive you crazy.

“I’d  _appreciate_  my head not being assaulted by your OCD, Vriska.” She’s almost right in your face, if a little off center. Most people don’t like looking you in the eye; your cool custom spider-eyed prosthetic is totally wasted on her.

You don’t know why you meet her gaze. Terezi’s the only person who can beat you in a stare down.

“So I guess you’d rather wake up to Makara’s oh-so-pretty stoner babbling, then, huh? Oh wait: he’s fucked off somewhere, probably wandering around in your pants. Too bad, guess you’re stuck with shitty little me.” You take a swig of your cappuccino and wish you’d remembered to bring your  _Pirates of the Caribbean_  flask.  

Terezi’s slumps almost imperceptibly, like someone caught doing something shameful. Gamzee’s loose shirt slides off one shoulder, showing purpley, yellow blotches and a scabbed-over bite mark. The coffeemaker starts hissing and bubbling. She turns around and fetches a mug that actually has braille on it. You only know it says ‘Lawyer Juice’ because you custom ordered it. 

You glare at her back. “Seriously I gotta find out from Karkles that you’re hate-humping the fucking  _clown_?”

“You lost your ‘judge other people’s relationships’ privileges about four terrible exes back, Vriska. And that’s not even counting Eridan.”

“Pft, Eridan didn’t count. We were both rebounding.” At least the hateful little shit had been a decent bottom boy; shoving his face down had been the only way to get him to  _shut up_. “And I’m really finding it hard to call  _this_ ,” You wave your coffee cup at her, the mess on the floor, the situation choking in the room like bad weedsmoke. “A ‘relationship.’”

Jesus, you’re starting to sound like Kanaya. She must  _never_  know.

You can hardly believe this is even happening. It's like some paradoxical reverse-déjà vu where  _you’re_ the one in  _Terezi’s_  apartment in the aftermath of questionable shenanigans. But hell, it’s not like you ever made it some big secret, how fucked up you are.

“I know you’re a bit-light headed from the thin air of your new moral high ground,” Terezi pours her coffee into her mug. You can see the effort she puts into keeping her hands as steady as possible. “But you’re making this into something it’s not.”

“And you’re coming off shit stronger than booze and shitty soda and hoping I wouldn’t notice.”

Not like you really have room to criticize, what with how many times her or Kanaya have found you utterly wrecked from trying to self-medicate and go scorched-earth on all your defective brain cells. 

Addiction is a powerful thing.

“It’s just blowing off a little steam,” Terezi explains. She barely waits for her coffee to cool off before gulping it down, not even adding her customary piles of sugar and cream. 

Exactly eight jokes about what unsteamlike things were being blown come to mind, but somehow you contain yourself. You look at the scratches and bites on her legs, the bruises around her wrists. “Usually you’re the one who likes to be in control.” 

“Maybe I’m tired of control,” she says.

Your immediate response is “Bullshit,” because Control is Terezi to a literal ‘T.’ Always with a plan, always calling the shots, never comfortable until she has every angle covered. 

She’s going to be a demon in the courtroom someday; you already plan to take full and shameless advantage of your hotshot lawyer. But right now, in her kitchen she’s never looked smaller, more broken to you. Even in the hospital, she was standing over your bed with her eyes wrapped in bandages, feeling your gauzed-up face and telling you to stop being a wuss, at least  _you’ve_  still got the other eyeball left, and you’re a righty anyway.

“This isn’t you, Rezi.”

She turns on you, snarling, “How the hell would  _you_  know? Huh? I am genuinely curious to hear about a time when you weren’t so fucking absorbed in yourself that you noticed other people existed!”

Damn. Can't exactly argue that. “Well I’m here  _noooooooow_ , aren’t I?”

“Oh, and I should be so appreciative that you’ve made time out of your busy schedule to  _grace me_  with your presence. This is me, being grateful.”

None of this makes sense. Whenever Terezi was pissed with someone- that someone usually being you- she let you know, in her own Terezi way. A mystery you had to puzzle out, like a convoluted game of Clue. Vriksa, in the bleachers, with a bottle-rocket. 

“The hell is all this coming from, ‘Rezi?” You slam your mostly-empty cup on the counter, hop down to the floor, and prod her chest enough to make her stumble back. “I’m here because you’re being stupid and I’m worried about you, dumbass!”

She fumes at being poked unexpectedly. The two of you are practically toe to toe, this close the height difference couldn’t be more obvious. Her nose is practically level with your chest. “Don’t pretend you’re here because you’re being a concerned friend, Vriska! You didn’t have any problem fucking off with Meenah getting stupid haircuts and tattoos and whatever stupid punk nonsense she’s into! The only reason you’re here is because she’s out of town and you got  _bored_.”

You blink. “Is  _that_  what this is about? I’ve made a cool new friend that’s actually good for me and you don’t know what to do with yourself now?”

“I didn’t hear from you for  _three_   _months_! I thought you were arrested or dead or in the hospital again until you bothered sending those updates to Kanaya!” 

Okay, maybe running off and disappearing with Meenah without letting people know was a slight oversight, on your part. But you can hardly see how any of this equals  _your_  fault! “Let me get this straight: I take a break from things for a bit, so you jump Karkat’s druggie headcase of a ‘not-boyfriend’?” You do it before realizing fingerquotes are kinda pointless in current company.

“Maybe _I_ needed  _you_ for once and you. Weren’t. There!” She prods your chest this time, fingernails like sharp little talons.

“So Gamzee was the next best thing to me? Excuse me while I swoon loudly for you."

“No, because Gamzee doesn’t give a shit about me!” She snaps, utterly baffling you. “He doesn’t get uncomfortable when he says something about how I can’t see, or treats me like I’m something that has to be  _protected_. He doesn’t make me feel guilty for not being the ‘inspiration’ everyone expects me to be every second of every day, or tells me I should ‘treasure’ what I have. He uses me for what I am, and for a night I don’t have to feel anything or dream about the face of someone I haven’t  _seen_  in years.”

There’s tears in her eyes. You don’t think you’ve seen her cry in forever, not since you were little kids. They look like blood drops through her glasses. All her sharp, coiled anger like a saw-toothed animal just…deflates. She looks at absolutely nothing, eyes staring as if she can see something through you. Maybe she does. “At least around him, I’m allowed to be as fucking weak as I feel, sometimes.”

You let her lean her forehead against your chest. It can’t be very comfortable, since you don’t have much in the the way of padding. You put your hand on her head, petting her hair without really thinking about what you’re doing. The ghost of your arm aches to wrap her into a hug, and the fact that you can’t is like an itch skittering over the nonexistent nerves, right past the stump where your elbow should be. 

“I thought you’d get it,” Terezi mumbles into your shirt. “But you were just gone.”

You’re not sure you do, at least not in the way she thinks. There’s a difference between the two of you. People underestimate Terezi at first glance, and she makes them regret it. You walk down the street and people avert their eyes, try not to stare; you just keep your head up and grin at them like  _they’re_  the weak ones and you’re a dangerous, half-feral predator let loose in their midst.

Because  _anything_  was better than fucking pity. 

“Yeah okay,” you keep stroking her hair, like that was all you needed to say. It wasn’t an apology, because it’s not like you did anything wrong, but you think it perfectly telegraphed your  _regret_ that you weren’t there. Like, if you had the option, maybe you'd do things differently. “Seriously though… _Gamzee_?”

She snerks against your chest, a vibration that reminds you of one of Kanaya’s cats. “You still have no right to criticize, Serket.”

“Maybe,” you’re tall enough that you can easily rest your chin on top of her head. “At least I  _knew_  I was better than those assholes.” 

Her arms curl around your waist. “You were.”

Your palm settles on her back. You're the Paradox Queen of narcissistic self-loathing; you know better than to say the obvious platitudes and it's not your job to remind Terezi what she should already know. 

You _do_ tell her: "Bee-tee-dubs, I'm burning this fucking shirt first chance I get."

She half-snickers, half-hiccups into your chest. Yep, you are totally the best at this friend thing. 


End file.
